A victory for common sense to report from a courtroom in Utah. Koch Industries, said to be the largest private company in the US with its portfolio of energy and chemical manufacturing interests, has had its civil case against a group of anonymous email pranksters dismissed by a judge.

The "press release" was widely and immediately interpreted to be a prank. But a few weeks later, Koch Industries called on its lawyers to initiate proceedings against the pranksters. Papers lodged with a Utah district court revealed that Koch accused the pranksters, who called themselves Youth for Climate Truth, of violating federal laws on trademarks, cybersquatting, unfair competition and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The lawyers also successfully argued that subpoenas be sent to the Utah-based domain hosting companies from which the hoax press release had been sent demanding that the pranksters identities be revealed.

Citing first-amendment concerns, a Washington DC-based legal advocacy group called Public Citizen, which "defends democracy from corporate greed", announced it was to represent the defendants. (Public Citizen later facilitated an interview between myself and the defendants which you can view again here.)

All went quiet until yesterday afternoon when Judge Dale Kimballdismissed the case and granted a protective order against the disclosureof any information about the defendants' identities obtained from thesubpoenas. (You can read the ruling as a PDF.)

Last night, the defendants forwarded me this reaction via their lawyer,Deepak Gupta:

The court's ruling is a victory for anyone like us speaking out against corporations that use their fortunes to mislead the public about the serious dangers of climate change. The judge's verdict is a blow to Koch's efforts to scare critics of their multi-million dollar climate denial campaign into silence.We will never go public. We're not in it for personal fame, just trying to stop the Koch Brothers and Koch Industries from lying about the true threats from climate change. Just like Koch tried to intimidate and embarrass us, but worse, there are climate truth tellers out there who will face serious retribution if their identities are ever revealed. This victory is for them.

The [ruling] is an important victory for free speech online. The judge ruled that Youth for Climate Truth had a First Amendment right to issue its satirical press release and website – in which the group impersonated Koch and announced that the company had reversed its position on climate change – in an effort to call attention to Koch's bankrolling efforts to deny climate change…We are gratified that the court affirmed our clients' First Amendment right to engage in anonymous political speech and rejected Koch's baseless legal theories.This lawsuit was a well-financed attempt by Koch to bully its political opponents into submission. The court was right to dismiss this lawsuit, which was based on a harmless prank.This important precedent will prevent future lawsuits aimed at stifling political speech.

I asked Gupta how much Koch likely spent bringing this action to court. He said:

We don't know for sure, but I would estimate that Koch's lawyers charged the company tens of thousands of dollars. They hired two firms, one in Salt Lake City and the other in Georgia, filed several briefs that required extensive legal research, and flew out multiple lawyers for the hearing in Utah.

A spokeswoman for Koch Industries told Politico: "We are disappointed by the judge's decision. We have no further comment at this time."

That this heavy-handed legal action was ever brought against Youth for Climate Truth was pretty extraordinary. But thanks to the judge's ruling, corporate critics in the US should not now face legal threats when using satire and harmless pranks as part of their armoury.